


Not Yours, Personally

by Dashboardjuliet



Category: overwatch
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 06:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14587296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dashboardjuliet/pseuds/Dashboardjuliet
Summary: REPOST from old account -When Angela agreed to join Overwatch, it wasn't because she wanted to play nurse to the men that seemed to run it. And yet, somehow that is exactly what managed to happen.This will periodically be updated.





	1. Think of Others

"When I agreed to come work for Overwatch, it wasn't because I was to be your own personal nurse." Angela mused, mostly to herself, but also to the man seated in front of her.  Or maybe hunched was a better word.  Either way, her usually unbreakable temper was close to cracking, and Jack Morrison was to blame for half of it, the other half falling to Reyes but that was another story.  The current pain in her temple was choosing to not respond to her musings, and she took that as a sign to continue.

"I agreed because I would be head of medical research, head of something that could make a difference in a world that seems to experience pain on an almost daily basis.  That's all I wanted to do.  Help people, heal the things that I can with the power that I have by myself and what is given to me.  What is that dumb little thing you always say?" She asked, her stream of verbal thoughts trailing off as she looked up to catch his watching stare.  Her hands worked diligently as they both sat in silence.  She didn't even need to watch her hands as she wrapped the bandage around his leg.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch?" Morrison broke his silence, his eyes lighting up in that hopeful, playful manor that Angela had grown to know and, unwilling to admit, love.  Her straight face turned into a scowl, and Morrison's eyes lost that hopeful spark.

"No.  That isn't the one that I was thinking of.  You silly american and your even sillier sayings.  The one I was thinking of was 'Take care of number one'.  Does that ring a bell?" She rose her eyebrow, challenging him.  Their stare off lasted for only moments before his head dropped and his shoulders sagged.  Victory.

"Yes, it does." He said, his voice admitting his defeat.

"And what does that mean, Jack?"

"It means put your interests before those of others."

"And what would you say my interests are?"

"Helping others."

"That's right Jack!  I want to help those that others aren't helping, those that desperately need help.  Do you know who does not need my immediate help?" She pushed against the tender spot on his ankle that she knew was sprained.  She wasn't sadistic in any shape or form, but a small part of her relished in the way he hissed and with a smile, Angela knew her words were finally sinking in.  "It's you, Jack.  You do not require my immediate aid.  There are about fifty other medical staff in this base that I know are just as equipped as me to take care of these minor injuries you always seem to bring home!"

Pushing up off her knees from her seated position in front of him, Angela put her hands on her hips and looked down at him.  From his seated position, shoulders hunched and head hung in what she knew was shame, he looked so small.  Small was not a word she would normally associate with Commander Jack Morrison, but in that moment he was.  A small seed of guilt seeped into her from her core, where she knew that she had been to harsh with her scolding but it had been important in the moment.  She had not accepted Overwatch's proposition to be the nurse to their commanders, she had joined it to help the helpless.  With a quiet sigh, she moved from her standing position, walking around the ottoman in his private quarters, and took the empty seat on the small couch next to him.  Slipping her shoes off, Angela tucked her feet up underneath her and let her weight rest against his body.  

"You know I love you, right?" She said quietly, not wanting to interrupt the realization that had fallen over him.  "I love you, which means I will always take care of you, injuries or not.  But you are not my priority Jack.  You and Reyes, I love more than anything but if someone else is hurt, someone innocent with no other means of help, they will come first.  Always."  By the end of her quiet speech, she had turned to face him, hands cradling his still low face and holding it up so he could face her.  With a resigned sigh, Jack nodded and Angela's bright smiled returned to her face and she patted his cheek gently which made him huff and swat her hand away.  

"Angela?"

"Yes Jack?"

"I love you too."


	2. Soak and Simmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela has a difficult day in combat and it leads her to think about things that have passed.

In quiet moments where she was the only one in the room, Angela liked to take a moment to think about her parents. Not that she didn't think about them often, but between combat and saving lives, there was little free space in a day to actually spare thinking about them. Quiet moments, it seemed, were the only times she could truly dedicate to remembering them.

As Angela sat in the tub in her quarters private bathroom, soaking in lukewarm water and silence, her parents were the first thing on her mind. After days filled with combat, her parents ended up on her mind easily. The silence allowed her to indulge in the memories. Luckily this time they weren't memories of their passing.

It had been 21 years since her parents death, a period of time that seemed almost impossible to her. How could 21 years of her life have passed to quickly? The years seemed to mix together but she remembered them happening. And yet, it still felt like yesterday that she had lost them. 21 years that they had missed out on, 21 years that she could have spent with them.

Sinking further into the water, her bleach blond hair fanning out around her head like a halo. Angela smiled at the memory that rose from the back of her head, of her mother sitting next to her in the bath, commenting about her 'little angel'". The symbolism of her Valkyrie suit had been intentional, despite what she had told Reyes the multiple times he had tested and critiziced the design of the suit. Perhaps it had still been a childish urge to impress her parents, but once she had had the image of an angel in her head, it had been difficult to get out.

Even now, at 37 years old, she thought about how her parents would be proud of her, or so she assumed. She knew they would be, but a small part of her doubted. Would they look t their daughter with pride if they knew that occasionally, once on a blue moon, she had to take a life to preserve her own, take a life so that she would be able to continue to save others? She knew they would understand but sometimes she still wondered.

The creak of her door opening pulled her gently from her thoughts and she watched the bathroom door to see who her uninvited guest was. She knew of exactly two people who would come into her quarters uninvited, well three if you counted Lena but normally that was unintentional, so she had a fair idea of who it might be.

As the bathroom door opened, her guess was answered as Gabriel Reyes stepped into her bathroom, unwavering from the sight of her sitting in her bathtub. She watched as he paused for seemingly a single moment, contemplating, before pulling the hem of his gray shirt over his head and dropping it onto the floor next to her body suit. His belts came next, then pants, and as soon as his boxers were off, he was stepping into the small bathtub along with her. The low water level rose by at least a couple of inches and Angela smiled at how much space he took up.

They sat together in the comfortable silence, even as Angela moved in the small space so that she was leaning up against his chest, sitting between his legs, instead of leaning against the cold porcelain of the bathtub. Gabriel huffed as the water sloshed with her movement, and she shot a glare over her shoulder.

"If you don't like it, you can leave. If I remember correctly you weren't even invited to join in this bath." She said, not meaning the words she spoke. He was always invited, spoken invitation or not.

"You need to work at your jokes, Ang. They aren't very funny." He said, and she leaned back into him as he spoke, enjoying the simple comfort of physical touch and the pleasure of having his company. After that, their conversation dropped back into silence, and it seemed both were fine with that. It allowed Angela to think back to her parents, although in a different frame this time. What would they have thought of Gabriel, him and his commanding presence. Would they approve of her choice of finding love with him. Would they understand the relationship between her and Gabriel and Jack? She knew prejudices still stood, despite the passage of time. Her parents had never seemed to be the type of people to judge based on who someone loved, and Angela felt deep in her heart that they would have welcomed both of the men into their lives with open arms simply because they loved their daughter. Her heart lurched at the thought that the two of them would never be able to meet her parents; they could only be introduced to a shared gravesite and her grandmother's memorial to them.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" A hand wrapped around her midsection and pulled her closer to his body, yanking her from her thoughts that were bringing her mood down. Noticing her posture had stiffened, she relaxed again and let her head rest against his shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him mouth and the bottom of his nose, and she reached up with her forehead to briefly touch his chin, a motion that she hoped he found as touching.

"My parents. And how they would have loved to have met you." Angela said quietly, and she could feel as the temperature of the room seemed to drop. They took a turn from playful to serious, and she could only imagine how Gabriel's mind was adjusting to the change.

"I bet they were lovely people."

"They were."

"I would have enjoyed meeting them."

With one sentence, Angela felt herself falling even more in love with Gabriel Reyes then she thought she could.


	3. In the Heat of Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heartbreak can happen at any moment. Angela Ziegler knows this more than most.

When she meets Jack Morrison again, hero of Overwatch, he isn't a hero anymore, and she isn't Angela Ziegler. They meet under a haze of gunfire, when she is Mercy and he is Soldier 76, both older and wiser than they once were, aged by events that had transpired years before.

Caduceus staff ablaze with the healing beam, Mercy stays close to Tracer, who's is struggling to stay still long enough to be fully healed. Mercy knows her friend is itching to jump off into action, especially considering the gunfire circling around them is anything but trustworthy. 

"Love, you've gotta let me go!" Tracer pants, eager to get away. Mercy shakes her head sternly. 

"You're not going anywhere, not until I am sure you aren't going to fall the next time you take a step." Neither of them can stand knowing they're at the mercy of Talon agents missing their shots, but Mercy also can't stand to risk her friend's life.

The closer the level showing Lena's health gets to full, the closer the hail of gunfire grows, and Mercy begins to pray. She won't let her go, but she also doesn't want to die. She prays for a miracle, for mercy, for anything.

Her answer comes in the sound of return fire that causes both her and Tracer to freeze.

"What the..."

"Sh." Mercy silences her before she has a chance to finish her sentence, listening to the return fire, and how each time a bullet is fired, another is silenced.

Both women sit against the all in the alley of which they had taken cover, their backs pressing against the brick of the wall. Mercy's eyes are still glued to Lena's levels, and as soon as they reach full she pulls her staff away and Lena is gone in a flash of blue. She stays alone against the wall, knowing from the near silence of the area that it's almost safe. It's almost immediately that she gets her signal.

"Angie, love, the coast is clear. C'mon out and meet our new 'friend'." Lena's voice sounds hesitant, but it's steady and Mercy trusts her. Emerging out from behind the wall, she faces the situation out in front of her.

Standing in the center of the street is Lena, but another accompanies her, one she has never met before but reads easily. The flash of white hair is what she notices first, followed by the buzzer tactical mask that covers most of his face. He's got a soldiers stance and build, but looks far from any soldier that she has ever met before.

"What's your name mate?" 

The man doesn't answer, almost consumed with analyzing the situation. Lena shoots Mercy a concerned look.

"Mate?" She asks again.

"You can call me Soldier 76." He says finally and Mercy quickly realizes that his voice has been run through a synthesizer as well.

"Well, nice to meet ya 76. I'm Tracer and this is- "

"Doctor Ziegler. I know who you two are. Almost the whole world does."

Both women glance at each other before Lena shrugs her shoulders, and Mercy steps forward till she's standing next to the both of them.

"Well since you've heard of both of us already, it's nice to meet you." Mercy says, slowly dropping the guise of Mercy and returning to Angela. Soldier 76 just nods.

 

When she meets Jack Morrison again, as himself this time, it's after a clash similar to the one they had met in.

"You alright?" 76 asks, and Angela nods her response, trying to catch her breath which hasn't been able to catch up with having to chase the agile 76 around to constantly have his back.

"Yes, I'm fine. Are you? I don't think I've had a chance-" She's interrupted to by a sparking that comes from his mask. He spins and yanks it off as the guard sparks once again and he swears.

"Are you alright? Here let me see your face." She's treated electrical burns before, and Angela knows very well that there's a chance of them occurring by having something spark so close to an exposed area like the face. She moves forward but he dodges her move and steps away, keeping his back towards her, shoulders hunched.

"Don't!" He shouts and she halts almost immediately. It's only one word but it's enough to send her back into memories where the command has been spoken to her in battle, in heated conversations and in hushed whispers made in secret, all by one man who's voice sounds almost the same as how it was just said to her. 

"Let me see your face." Angela whispers, unable to muster anything else.

"Don't do this Angela." 76 pleads, and there's no denying anything now.

"Please let me see your face." She just needs to see him. She had buried him, cried over him, mourned him and now he was standing in front of her and she just needed to see. The way his shoulders drop tell her that she's won.

At 37 years old, Angela has had her heart broken a fair amount of times, and it breaks once more when she sees the face of the man she thought dead. She approaches cautiously, hesitantly, sure that she will wake up from a dream any moment. That moment doesn't come, and the second her fingers merely brush his scarred cheek, she is springing into his arms with a sob, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face into his shoulders to hide her tears.

Slowly his arms return the embrace, weaving around her neck and waist to clutch her to him.

In a street surrounded by war, her heart is broken and made whole once again.


	4. The Phantom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A phantom appears in more ways than one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was pre Moria so fuck Blizzard

Gabriel, she thought, had died in her arms on her table with her sobbing over his body. She had desperately tried to save him, used all the technology she had available to her in the moment but it wasn't enough. She had listened to his heart flatline in the ruins of her once high class labs and that had been it. Angela had cradled his head in her lap as she sobbed over his body, her tears falling onto his face.

She'd left him on the table, placing his head gently down and watching as it lolled to the side. Then she left, and never looked back, knowing if she did she wouldn't be able to bear the site of his limp body just laying there. As far as she knew, part of her heart had died that day, and two men held that piece as they were buried into empty caskets there were only theirs in name alone. 

And Angela moved on, or tried to at least. It was hard to move on from the two loves of her life that had destroyed each other, taking each other down. She lived with that thought, went through it every night as she tried to sleep. She would close her eyes and see the fallout of the three, see how they tore their relationship apart and they didn't care who they took down with them, herself included. It tore her apart.

Somehow she'd gotten Jack back, a miracle. Angela felt as if a piece of her heart had been returned to her. It still hurt, and they hadn't mentioned Gabriel to each other in the small conversations they'd had about the past. That was, until they faced the thing that had been aptly named 'Reaper". It had appeared to them as a black mist on the field, passing through with a ferocious speed. It had come close enough to scare her heart to a standstill, but Jack had held a hand over her mouth till it passed and somehow they had made it out alive. 

The night after, as they unwounded at the base, Angela had dared to speak of it.

"Have you ever seen that... thing before?" She mumbled, half asleep as they lounge together in the room that acted as a safe haven for the both of them, a place they could get away from the rest of the team and be themselves, especially since Jack seemed to be sticking with the charade Soldier 76.

"It was Reyes." Jack said after a moment of silence. Angela stilled at the name, then raised her head to level him a stern stare.

"That's not funny Jack. Gabe is dead. I don't care what happened between you two, but I held him as he died on my table and I would appreciate it if you didn't speak about the man that we loved that way." She emphasized her words, making sure he knew that once upon a time, he had loved Gabriel too.

"I'm not lying to you. It's him. I don't know how but he's still kicking."

"Jack," Angela said as she pushed off of his chest, her grip on her voice weakening. It shook as she spoke. "Stop it now. He died. I saw it."

"Angela I'm not lying to you. He found me and almost killed me. He's changed. I don't know how or what happened to him, but that isn't the Reyes we knew."

In that moment, Angela knew something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

 

In the dead of night, she goes out on her own to think, to try and process the news that she'd been faced with. Gabriel was alive, and changed. He'd almost killed Jack, and was hunting them down. Hunting his old friends and comrades down with a vengeance. And in the back of her mind, Angela tried to piece together how everything had gone so wrong.

She tried her hardest to replicate what she had accomplished once before with Genji. It had been easier, of course, since Gabriel was still intact. The nanotech was accepted by his body, she had watched as they had gone through the iv she had attached to his arm with the saline fluid. He hadn't reacted in the typical fashion if they were rejected. It should have worked, according to all the tests she had done, it should have worked. Yet it hadn't. The nanotech hadn't changed anything, reversed the effects of the blast and the damage he had taken. They did... nothing. No visible changed had occurred to him while she was there with his body.

The click of her heels against the brick road are the only sound that fills the cold air of the night, save for crickets and the quiet far off sounds of the city that remind her despite the fact that the world has stayed a dark place, life goes on. Families are made each day, new life is brought into the world, and somehow the earth keeps spinning. It makes her smile, even faced with the facts that her lover she thought dead was alive once more.

After what seems like an hour of wandering down dim lit streets on the outskirts of Gibraltar, staying close to the base but far enough away that she could breathe in peace, Angela made her decision to return.

The walk back seemed longer than it had earlier. Perhaps it was because she took a different route, perhaps it was because she wasn't feeling the need to escape to think. Either way, she felt slower, weighted down as she walked. Her footsteps stopped as something down an alleyway crashed, her head swishing to stare down the dark alley. She searched in the darkness but saw nothing. Leaving it to the fault of a cat or some stray animal, she continued her walk back to the base, although the click of her heels was faster, and she kept the quicker pace up. Unconsciously, her hand drifted to the blaster that she kept with her at all times, and her fingers tightened around the handle. It made her feel just bit safer.

Nervous was not a feeling that Angela was accustomed to, but from out of the corner of her eye she spotted a fog rolling in around her feet, she felt it. Her grip tightened and she spun, pulling the caduceus blaster out, holding it protectively in front of her. Distantly, she could hear what sounded like an echoing chuckle surround her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight.

"Come out, whoever you are, and stop this game of cat and mouse." She said, slightly impressed that her voice hadn't shook. She hated confrontation like this, hated where she felt like she didn't have the upper hand on the situation.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you Mercy." Her ears hadn't been playing games on her, it seemed, as a voice similar to the chuckling rang out through the street.

"Yes, I would like to see who I am supposed to be aiming at. It does help me so."

"And who do you suppose you're aiming at?" The voice hissed from over her shoulder, and she spun once again, this time coming face to face with a phantom that she had only seen in passing, in mention on the news. The bone white mask stared at her, and it took all of her power to not flinch and jump away. Angela stood her ground, holding her blaster steady even as Reaper's clawed hand came up to grip her face in a death like grip, claws digging into the flesh on her cheeks just enough to make her feel pain.

"I think it is nothing but a ghost." She replied through clenched teeth, and quickly raised her blaster up and pulled the trigger. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke and Angela took her chance to kick of her heels, taking off in the fastest run she could. Her bare feet slapped against the brick as she ran, turing quickly down a street while checking over her shoulder to see if she was being followed. It was in moments like these where she wished she had her wings. Flying would be so much easier than running.

"Where do you think you're going? I'm not done with you!" His voice echoed through the streets again and it took her by complete surprise as she was tackled to the ground from the side. She stayed quiet as he took her down, but she was able to swing her arm out around his mask and flip away from him as they both landed, leaving her rolling to the side away from him. Staying on the ground Angela aimed the blaster again to take another shot but found herself being aimed at as well.

"Who are you?" She questioned, staring down the barrel of his gun. Her chest was heaving, trying to catch her breath, but she held the blaster steady.

"I'm just like you said. A ghost, a phantom. You should have left me dead." He hissed.

"Not specific enough. Who are you!"

"You don't remember? You did this to me!" He said, his empty voice raising. He stood as he spoke, menacing figure lifting up to cast a shadow over her form.

"I don't even know who you are!" She yelled back, her grip finally starting to shake.

"But I know who you are Ang, and I'm coming for you." With a cloud of smoke, he disappeared, leaving her alone, leaning up against a stone wall holding her blaster in shaking hands.

In her head, the nickname echoed, and she felt her heart shatter.


	5. The Phantom Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She runs into Reaper a few more times and the outcome is always the same. But one time it isn't.

She's had run ins with Reaper and his sometimes partner Widowmaker at least four times, each time 76 has been at her side. Just like before, she leaves their encounters confused. In her head, it just doesn't make sense, she can't place what went wrong and how what she had intended made everything so much worse. She can't feel guilty about trying to do her best under terrible circumstances, but she still aches every time they meet because it serves as a reminder of what she has failed to do, who she failed to save. Jack tries to understand, but Angela knows it's difficult for him, just as it's difficult for her. She has to remind herself that it wasn't just her that lost a love. Despite their fallout, Jack and Gabriel has been in love too, and what had transpired had left Jack just as hurt too. That reminder doesn't stop her from feeling tremendous guilt that keeps her awake at night, going over her notes to see where she could have gone wrong.

The others start to notice but it just makes her feel more guilty because it means she's been lacking. Some part of her has been absent, and they all notice it. Tracer has looked on with concern while Winston has made it his duty to keep her company during the time she spends in the lab. Mei talks with her about research while Jesse makes sure she gets out of the lab. Reinhardt has served as a reminder of home despite being from Germany and strikes up many conversations in their shared tongue that leaves everyone else confused. Torbjörn adds input onto what modifications she can make to her suit and staff, although they are always eventually shot down for being a bit too much for her. Genji is the one that she finds the most comfort in besides Jack. They've bonded over the years, moving from patient and doctor to something more, true partners in all sense of the word. He understands, somewhat, and doesn't try to distract her from the past except for when he reminds her that she doesn't have the power to change what transpired. Sometimes she hates how much he changed with Zenyatta. New members like Hana or Pharah don't understand and don't pretend to, and she's grateful that they don't try to be a comfort, especially because she doesn't think they could be. 

"I just don't understand." She whispers one night when it is just her and Genji in her lab, cupping her hands on her temples as she stares down at her notes from the original procedure and the ones she's written about Gabriel's after it occured. It doesn't make any sense, and she's beginning to believe that it never will. By all accounts, as far as she can remember, everything had been done the same to some extent. She can't speak of it anymore to Jack because they both end up upset. They've only come back to each other so recently, and she can't lose him again. Genji has become her go to for verbally processing her thoughts. He stays silent, and Angela turns her head to look at him. His visor is up, and she's able to look him in the eyes.

"Why can't I understand this?" Angela restates her question and finally, finally, Genji blinks and allows her to receive one of the few smiles he hands out.

"You can not always understand Angela. Things happen that we can not control and we are forced to live with the consequences." His voice is quiet and so steady that instead of normally calming her down it just gets her more frustrated.

"But it worked with you! Genji, it worked but why didn't it work again?" She said, throwing her hands up into the air and reclining back into her chair, allowing her head to hang over the top of the chair. He looks down at her from his cross legged perch on her examination table.

"You can't always be lucky. Failing is a part of life. Why can't you seem to understand this?" His question is genuine, she knows this. He's trying to help her but it just doesn't seem to be working. Defeated, Angela closes her eyes and lets her hands hang off the armrests. The sound of steam being released echoes in the empty lab, and Angela knows just by hearing the Genji has moved. Cool metal touches her forehead, and she opens her eyes to see Genji staring back down at her, his metal helmet resting against her forehead. It's a touching gesture that she accepts as she closes her eyes again, frustration leaking from her in the form of small tears that leak from the corners of her eyes.

"I have no doubt you will figure it out, but do not let it destroy you. Your past is not worth ruining your future." His 'forehead' leaves hers and the metal tap against the tile floor alerts her to his departure. Tossing her arm over her eyes, Angela allows herself to cry.

 

For the first time in a while, Angela looses her cool during battle and pays for it. 

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" She hisses at herself as she pulls the fabric of her leggings into a larger hole so she can properly see and assess her wound. It's a nasty thing, a bullet wound to the thigh that bleeds freely. There is no exit wound so she knows the bullet is still buried in her leg. No serious veins hit, but at the rate she is bleeding she knows she will need help soon. Gritting her teeth, she rips her leggings completely and rips a strip off of them. Tying it off above the bullet hole, Angela bites back a shout at the searing pain that shoots from it.

"I need healing!" She says in the calmest voice she can manage as she holds a bloodied hand to the comm in her ear.

"Fuck, hold on Angela!" Jack's voice springs over the comm and into her ear and she calms down for a moment before she hears a shot fire through the comm and he swears again. She bolts upright, forgetting her wound in a moment of panic for Jack, and this time she can't hold back her swear.

"Hundesohn!"

"Quite the tongue you've got there." The familiar harsh voice that's been seemingly haunting her dreams comes from behind her, behind where she leans against an almost broken wall for some semblance of cover. She freezes and tries not to move, half because she is terrified and half for the fear of making her leg feel any worse. He seems not to notice that she's hurt, and she would like to keep it that way. This isn't the Gabriel that would care for her when she was injured. She was't sure he would leave her alive if he knew that she was already hurt, and she doesn't care very much to find out.

"I seem to remember you didn't know German." She replies.

"You seem to remember a lot of things. You also seem to forget that things change. Don't you have a team to be healing?" He's mocking her but she has no strength to try and defend herself.

"I probably do, but they are stronger than they appear." He moves a step closer, almost hovering, as she speaks. Angela flinches away and bites her lip as all her muscles tense at the reminder that she is in fact injured and that she is sitting in a small pool of her own blood. He stops almost immediately and stares at her leg.

"You're hurt." His voice is small, unlike his looming presence. She looks up at him slowly, trying not to move and for just a moment her heart leaps in her chest because for that second he sounds like Gabriel, her Gabriel.

"I am." She whispers in return.

For what seems like forever, they stay there, and Angela fears that if she moves, she will never get a chance like this again.

"Gaberiel... I-" She starts but he waves her off, huffing.

"Save it. I know what you're going to say, and you don't need to." He kneels down to get a closer look at her leg, reaching up to touch his mask and pull it away from his face. She holds her breath and doesn't want to sob as she gets her first look at his face since she last saw him laying dead on her table in the destroyed headquarters. He looks so similar yet so different. The healthy pallor his skin once had is gone, looking sickly and gray. He looks dead and she shatters when she looks him in the eye.

"Oh God, Gabriel, I'm sorry." She sobs, holding herself stiff so she doesn't move like her body wants to when she cries. 

"I know you are." His voice is soft, reminding her of the old man he was, maybe still is. He's gentle as he looks at her leg, tightens the makeshift tourniquet. Angela moans and he looks up at her. "Is someone coming to help you?"

"I called. They should be here-" She doesn't finish her sentence, interrupted by the worried shout that echoes out.

"Angela?" It's Jack, and it's Gabriel's turn to freeze. Her eyes turn to the open area down below her, and then back to Gabriel. He's already putting his mask back on and moving away. She needs to stop him but she can't do more than hold her hand out and reach toward him.

"Gabe, wait!"

"Don't worry. This won't be the last time we meet." He says, and then he's gone in a cloud of black smoke. She watches as he disappears, and only a minute later Jack is standing where Gabe once was.

As Jack picks her up and carries her away to get aid, Gabe's last words repeat in her head.


	6. You're a Firework

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4th of July festivities ensue

"We need to get good seats." Angela announced over her shoulder to the men trailing behind her. She powers on ahead, pulling a rolling basket behind her filled with a blanket and a small cooler with drinks. She's giddy about what's to come, a feeling that the two americans seem to not share.

"There won't be that many people Angie. Most will be in the arena, I'm sure of it." Jack yells back. She glares over her shoulder, aiming her gaze at him, but she catches the trail end of a large grin on Gabriel's face.

"But you don't know that!" She says while scouting the golf park for a clear area that appeared perfect to her nose watch. The perfect spot comes in the form of an empty sand bucket that she spots. Grinning, she hurries her pace to the sand pit, sliding down the small hill of sand till she is standing in the middle of it.

"Here." She says, turing to her men with a smile.

"Here? I'm gonna get sand everywhere." Gabriel responds. Angela sticks her tongue out at him.

"You can get sand everywhere, I don't care. We are sitting her." She knows he is teasing her, mostly because he had been grinning the entire time. Jack and Gabe begin to unpack their things and she stands with her hands on her hips, watching with a smile on her face.

Completely satisfied with the spot, Angela lays down in the middle of the blanket, shooting her boys a coy smile. They did so much for her, including leaving for firework at least two hours earlier than before they were scheduled to start. She felt a childlike glee at experiencing her first 4th of July fireworks show,one that both of her men seemed to understand from memories of their childhood.

"You're not gonna see anything yet Ang." Gabe says as he lays down on her right, while Jack take the empty space one her left. She doesn't move her gaze from the slowly darkening sky, but she does grin.

"I dunno, maybe she's not waiting for the fireworks. Maybe this was her wild plan to seduce us under the stars." Jack whispers, edging closer to place a playful kiss on the nape of her neck just below her ear.

"I could do that in the hotel if I really wanted to. Now knock it off!" Angela laughs, and in the distance she can hear the giggles and happy cries of children. Jack lets out a fake groan and returns to laying on his back.

"We'll hold you to that later." Gabe says quietly, rolling just a bit closer so she can feel his breath on her ear. She shivers, just a bit more than Jack's kiss had made her.

"Stop." She says, more seriously but she can tell from the smug look on his face as she turned her head to look at him, he had intended to get that reaction out of her.

Their evening as they wait for the sky to darken is spent in the same manor, openly flirting and teasing one another. It's so easy to be themselves when they have no appearances to keep up. In the growing darkness of the night, they are just Angela and Jack and Gabriel, not Doctor Angela Ziegler and Commander Jack Morrison and Commander Gabriel Reyes of Overwatch. There is no mask between them here.

She prefers it this way, when they are able to exist without being recognized. Despite being there for a meeting at the Overwatch outpost, they were able to escape the monotony of their duties and just enjoy being with each other. Besides, it's Angela's first 4th of July spent in America, and she wasn't going to let work get in the way of her seeing the fireworks show in Grand Junction.

They are in a quiet conversation about movies when the first firework goes off. Immediately Angela quiets and her eyes are glued to the whistling projectile as it shoots high in the air, only to explode into a bloom of brilliant green. She's dazzled as the shimmering green cascades back down to earth, slowly fading into nothing till she can't see any evidence of the explosion.

"Wow." She whispers, her voice almost impossible to be heard. She sounds like a five year old again, wide eyed and amazed by every new thing in the world. Fireworks aren't a new sight to her, but it must be the atmosphere of celebration, of being surrounded by families all brought together for the same reason, by having two men who love her above everything at her side because it feels so new and oh so amazing.

As the second set goes off, a spiraling pair that whizzes into the air with a loud cry before bursting into clouds of pink smoke, she takes Jack and Gabriel's hand and pulls them both to rest on her stomach so that they are all connected to each other.

They stay like that for the rest of the show, all thirty minutes of it. She holds their hands close to her, and as the last firework goes off, she doesn't want to let them go. Angela doesn't want to return to her work, to their busy lives where they constantly have to put on a show for the world. She wants to stay in the dark, in the happy moment of now.

"Angela? The shows been over for ten minutes." Jack says. She can feel both of their gazes on her as she continues to stare up at the sky that is now filled with stars instead of fireworks.

"I know, I just... I'm not ready to leave yet. Not yet." They don't ask for clarification on her vague answer. They just accept it.

She's grateful they don't question her because then she would have to admit that in the pit of her stomach she has a feeling that things are about to change drastically, and she doesn't know if she'll make it out of it the same.


End file.
